Читать книгу Lifespan Development - Tara L. Kuther - Страница 86

Scientists who seek to test hypotheses about causal relationships, such as whether media exposure influences behavior or whether hearing particular types of music influences mood, employ experimental research. An experiment is a procedure that uses control to determine causal relationships among variables. Specifically, one or more variables thought to influence a behavior of interest are changed, or manipulated, while other variables are held constant. Researchers can then examine how the changing variable influences the behavior under study. If the behavior changes as the variable changes, this suggests that the variable caused the change in the behavior.